Previously, I've explored the beneficial effects of flaxseeds on prostate cancer (Flaxseeds vs. Prostate Cancer), as well as breast cancer prevention and survival (Flaxseeds & Breast Cancer Prevention and Breast Cancer Survival & Lignan Intake). The cancer-fighting effect of flaxseeds is thought to be because of the lignans, which are cancer-fighting plant compounds found in red wine, whole grains, greens (cruciferous vegetables), and especially sesame seeds and flaxseeds, the most concentrated source on Earth. But this is based on per unit weight. People eat a lot more grains than seeds. Of the grains people eat, the highest concentration of lignans is found in rye. So, can rye intake decrease the risk of cancer? Theoretically yes, but unlike flaxseeds, it's never been directly put to the test... until now.

In my video Does Rye Bread Protect Against Cancer?, I discuss the evidence that does exist. If you measure the levels of lignans in the bloodstream of women living in a region where they eat lots of rye, the odds of breast cancer in women with the highest levels do seem to be just half that of women with the lowest levels. But lignans are also found in tea and berries, so we couldn't be sure where the protection is coming from. To get around this, researchers decided to measure alkylresorcinol metabolites, a class of phytonutrients relatively unique to whole grains.

Researchers collected urine from women with breast cancer and women without, and the women with breast cancer had significantly lower levels compared to those without. This suggests that women at risk for breast cancer consume significantly lower amounts of whole grains like rye. But if we follow older women in their 50s through 60s, the intake of whole grain products was not associated with risk of breast cancer. A similar result was found in older men for prostate cancer. Is it just too late at that point?

We know from data on dairy that diet in our early life may be important in the development of prostate cancer, particularly around puberty when the prostate grows and matures. If you look at what men were drinking in adolescence, daily milk consumption appeared to triple their risk of advanced prostate cancer later in life. (Learn more about milk and prostate cancer in my video Prostate Cancer and Organic Milk vs. Almond Milk.) So, researchers looked at daily rye bread consumption during adolescence.

Those who consumed rye bread daily as kids did appear to only have half the odds of advanced prostate cancer. This is consistent with immigrant studies suggesting that the first two decades of life may be most important for setting the pattern for cancer development in later life. These findings are certainly important for how we should feed our kids, but if we're already middle-aged, is it too late to change course? To answer this question, researchers in Sweden put it to the test.

Researchers took men with prostate cancer and split them into two groups. One group got lots of rye bread, while the other got lots of high-fiber, but low-lignan, wheat bread. There's been some indirect evidence that rye may be active against prostate cancer--like lower cancer rates in regions with high rye consumption--but it had never been directly investigated... until this study. Biopsies were taken from the subjects' tumors before and after three weeks of bread eating, and the number of cancer cells that were dying off were counted. Though there was no change in the cancer cell clearance of the control bread group, there was a 180% increase in the number of cancer cells being killed off in the rye group. A follow-up study lasting 6 weeks found a 14% decrease in PSA levels, a cancer marker suggesting a shrinkage of the tumor.

The researchers note they used very high rye bread intakes, and it remains to be tested if more normal intake levels would have effects that are of clinical importance. As a sadly typical American, my lack of intimate familiarity of the metric system did not flag the "485 grams" of rye bread a day as far out of the ordinary, but that translates to 15 slices! Rather than eating a loaf a day, the same amount of lignans can be found in a single teaspoon of ground flaxseeds.

Previously, I've explored the beneficial effects of flaxseeds on prostate cancer (Flaxseeds vs. Prostate Cancer), as well as breast cancer prevention and survival (Flaxseeds & Breast Cancer Prevention and Breast Cancer Survival & Lignan Intake). The cancer-fighting effect of flaxseeds is thought to be because of the lignans, which are cancer-fighting plant compounds found in red wine, whole grains, greens (cruciferous vegetables), and especially sesame seeds and flaxseeds, the most concentrated source on Earth. But this is based on per unit weight. People eat a lot more grains than seeds. Of the grains people eat, the highest concentration of lignans is found in rye. So, can rye intake decrease the risk of cancer? Theoretically yes, but unlike flaxseeds, it's never been directly put to the test... until now.

In my video Does Rye Bread Protect Against Cancer?, I discuss the evidence that does exist. If you measure the levels of lignans in the bloodstream of women living in a region where they eat lots of rye, the odds of breast cancer in women with the highest levels do seem to be just half that of women with the lowest levels. But lignans are also found in tea and berries, so we couldn't be sure where the protection is coming from. To get around this, researchers decided to measure alkylresorcinol metabolites, a class of phytonutrients relatively unique to whole grains.

Researchers collected urine from women with breast cancer and women without, and the women with breast cancer had significantly lower levels compared to those without. This suggests that women at risk for breast cancer consume significantly lower amounts of whole grains like rye. But if we follow older women in their 50s through 60s, the intake of whole grain products was not associated with risk of breast cancer. A similar result was found in older men for prostate cancer. Is it just too late at that point?

We know from data on dairy that diet in our early life may be important in the development of prostate cancer, particularly around puberty when the prostate grows and matures. If you look at what men were drinking in adolescence, daily milk consumption appeared to triple their risk of advanced prostate cancer later in life. (Learn more about milk and prostate cancer in my video Prostate Cancer and Organic Milk vs. Almond Milk.) So, researchers looked at daily rye bread consumption during adolescence.

Those who consumed rye bread daily as kids did appear to only have half the odds of advanced prostate cancer. This is consistent with immigrant studies suggesting that the first two decades of life may be most important for setting the pattern for cancer development in later life. These findings are certainly important for how we should feed our kids, but if we're already middle-aged, is it too late to change course? To answer this question, researchers in Sweden put it to the test.

Researchers took men with prostate cancer and split them into two groups. One group got lots of rye bread, while the other got lots of high-fiber, but low-lignan, wheat bread. There's been some indirect evidence that rye may be active against prostate cancer--like lower cancer rates in regions with high rye consumption--but it had never been directly investigated... until this study. Biopsies were taken from the subjects' tumors before and after three weeks of bread eating, and the number of cancer cells that were dying off were counted. Though there was no change in the cancer cell clearance of the control bread group, there was a 180% increase in the number of cancer cells being killed off in the rye group. A follow-up study lasting 6 weeks found a 14% decrease in PSA levels, a cancer marker suggesting a shrinkage of the tumor.

The researchers note they used very high rye bread intakes, and it remains to be tested if more normal intake levels would have effects that are of clinical importance. As a sadly typical American, my lack of intimate familiarity of the metric system did not flag the "485 grams" of rye bread a day as far out of the ordinary, but that translates to 15 slices! Rather than eating a loaf a day, the same amount of lignans can be found in a single teaspoon of ground flaxseeds.

We've known that breastfed infants may be protected against obesity later in life for more than 30 years, but why? It may be the formula. Giving infants formula based on cow's milk presents an unusual situation. Cow's milk is designed to put nearly two pounds a day onto a growing calf, 40 times the growth rate of human infants (see Formula for Childhood Obesity).

The perfect food for humans, finely tuned over millions of years, is human breast milk. Remarkably, among all mammalian species, the protein content of human milk is the lowest. The excessive protein content of cow's milk-based formula is thought to be what may be what sets the child up for obesity later in life.

And then, instead of being weaned, we continue to drink milk. The question thus arises as to whether consumption of a growth-promoting substance from another species throughout childhood fundamentally alters processes of human growth and maturation. A study out of Indiana University, for example, found evidence that greater milk intake is associated with an increased risk of premature puberty; girls drinking a lot of milk started to get their periods earlier. Thus, cross-species milk consumption and ingestion into childhood may trigger unintended consequences.

Only human milk allows appropriate metabolic programming and protects against diseases of civilization in later life, whereas consumption of cow's milk and dairy products during adolescence and adulthood is an evolutionarily novel behavior that may have long-term adverse effects on human health.

Teens exposed to dairy proteins such as casein, skim milk, or whey, experienced a significant increase in BMI and waist circumference compared to a control group. In contrast, not a single study funded by the dairy industry found a result unfavorable to milk.

The head of the Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children's Hospital and the chair of Harvard's nutrition department wrote an editorial recently to the AMA's Pediatrics journal questioning the role of cow's milk in human nutrition. They stated the obvious: humans have no requirement for other animal's milk; in fact, dairy may play a role in certain cancers due to the high levels of reproductive hormones in the U.S. milk supply.

We've known that breastfed infants may be protected against obesity later in life for more than 30 years, but why? It may be the formula. Giving infants formula based on cow's milk presents an unusual situation. Cow's milk is designed to put nearly two pounds a day onto a growing calf, 40 times the growth rate of human infants (see Formula for Childhood Obesity).

The perfect food for humans, finely tuned over millions of years, is human breast milk. Remarkably, among all mammalian species, the protein content of human milk is the lowest. The excessive protein content of cow's milk-based formula is thought to be what may be what sets the child up for obesity later in life.

And then, instead of being weaned, we continue to drink milk. The question thus arises as to whether consumption of a growth-promoting substance from another species throughout childhood fundamentally alters processes of human growth and maturation. A study out of Indiana University, for example, found evidence that greater milk intake is associated with an increased risk of premature puberty; girls drinking a lot of milk started to get their periods earlier. Thus, cross-species milk consumption and ingestion into childhood may trigger unintended consequences.

Only human milk allows appropriate metabolic programming and protects against diseases of civilization in later life, whereas consumption of cow's milk and dairy products during adolescence and adulthood is an evolutionarily novel behavior that may have long-term adverse effects on human health.

Teens exposed to dairy proteins such as casein, skim milk, or whey, experienced a significant increase in BMI and waist circumference compared to a control group. In contrast, not a single study funded by the dairy industry found a result unfavorable to milk.

The head of the Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children's Hospital and the chair of Harvard's nutrition department wrote an editorial recently to the AMA's Pediatrics journal questioning the role of cow's milk in human nutrition. They stated the obvious: humans have no requirement for other animal's milk; in fact, dairy may play a role in certain cancers due to the high levels of reproductive hormones in the U.S. milk supply.

High dietary fiber intake may help prevent strokes. The belief that dietary fiber intake is protectively associated with certain diseases was postulated 40 years ago and then enormously fueled and kept alive by a great body of science since. Today it is generally believed that eating lots of fiber-rich foods helps prevent obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases such as stroke.

The best observational studies to date found that fiber appears to significantly protect against the risk of stroke. Different strokes for different folks, depending, evidently, on how much fiber they ate. Notably, increasing fiber just seven grams a day was associated with a 7% reduction in stroke risk. And seven grams is easy, that's like a serving of whole grain pasta with tomato sauce and an apple.

What's the mechanism? Maybe it's that fiber helps lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Or it could just be that those eating more fiber are just eating more vegetables, or fewer calories, or less meat and fat, or improving digestion, all of which may slim us down and lower our blood pressure and the amount of inflammation in our bodies. Does it really matter, though? As Dr. Burkitt commented on the biblical passage, "A man scatters seed on the land--the seed sprouts and opens--how, he does not know," the farmer doesn't wait to find out. Had the farmer postponed his sowing until he understood seed germination, he would not have lasted very long. So yes, let's keep trying to figure out why fiber is protective, but in the meanwhile, we should be increasing our intake of fiber, which is to say increasing our intake of whole plant foods.

It's never too early to start eating healthier. Strokes are one of many complications of arterial stiffness. Though our first stroke might not happen until our 50's, our arteries may have been stiffening for decades leading up to it. Hundreds of kids were followed for 24 years, from age 13 in through 36 and researchers found that lower intake of fiber during a young age was associated with stiffening of the arteries leading up to the brain. Even by age 13, they could see differences in arterial stiffness depending on diet. Fiber intake is important at any age.

Again, it doesn't take much. One extra apple a day or an extra quarter cup of broccoli might translate into meaningful differences in arterial stiffness in adulthood. If you really don't want a stroke, we should try to get 25 grams a day of soluble fiber (found concentrated in beans, oats, nuts, and berries) and 47 grams a day of insoluble fiber (concentrated in whole grains). One would have to eat an extraordinarily healthy diet to get that much, yet these cut-off values could be considered as the minimum recommended daily intake of soluble and insoluble fiber to prevent stroke. The researchers admit these are higher than those commonly and arbitrarily proposed as "adequate" levels by scientific societies, but should we care about what authorities think is practical? They should just share the best scienceand let us make up our own minds.

Someone funded by Kellogg's wrote in to complain that in practice, such fiber intakes are "unachievable" and that the message should just be the more, the better--like maybe just have a bowl of cereal or something.

The real Dr. Kellogg was actually one of our most famous physicians, credited for being one of the first to sound the alarm about smoking, and who may have been the first American physician to have recognized the field of nutrition as a science. He would be rolling in his grave today if he knew what his family's company had become.

High dietary fiber intake may help prevent strokes. The belief that dietary fiber intake is protectively associated with certain diseases was postulated 40 years ago and then enormously fueled and kept alive by a great body of science since. Today it is generally believed that eating lots of fiber-rich foods helps prevent obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases such as stroke.

The best observational studies to date found that fiber appears to significantly protect against the risk of stroke. Different strokes for different folks, depending, evidently, on how much fiber they ate. Notably, increasing fiber just seven grams a day was associated with a 7% reduction in stroke risk. And seven grams is easy, that's like a serving of whole grain pasta with tomato sauce and an apple.

What's the mechanism? Maybe it's that fiber helps lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Or it could just be that those eating more fiber are just eating more vegetables, or fewer calories, or less meat and fat, or improving digestion, all of which may slim us down and lower our blood pressure and the amount of inflammation in our bodies. Does it really matter, though? As Dr. Burkitt commented on the biblical passage, "A man scatters seed on the land--the seed sprouts and opens--how, he does not know," the farmer doesn't wait to find out. Had the farmer postponed his sowing until he understood seed germination, he would not have lasted very long. So yes, let's keep trying to figure out why fiber is protective, but in the meanwhile, we should be increasing our intake of fiber, which is to say increasing our intake of whole plant foods.

It's never too early to start eating healthier. Strokes are one of many complications of arterial stiffness. Though our first stroke might not happen until our 50's, our arteries may have been stiffening for decades leading up to it. Hundreds of kids were followed for 24 years, from age 13 in through 36 and researchers found that lower intake of fiber during a young age was associated with stiffening of the arteries leading up to the brain. Even by age 13, they could see differences in arterial stiffness depending on diet. Fiber intake is important at any age.

Again, it doesn't take much. One extra apple a day or an extra quarter cup of broccoli might translate into meaningful differences in arterial stiffness in adulthood. If you really don't want a stroke, we should try to get 25 grams a day of soluble fiber (found concentrated in beans, oats, nuts, and berries) and 47 grams a day of insoluble fiber (concentrated in whole grains). One would have to eat an extraordinarily healthy diet to get that much, yet these cut-off values could be considered as the minimum recommended daily intake of soluble and insoluble fiber to prevent stroke. The researchers admit these are higher than those commonly and arbitrarily proposed as "adequate" levels by scientific societies, but should we care about what authorities think is practical? They should just share the best scienceand let us make up our own minds.

Someone funded by Kellogg's wrote in to complain that in practice, such fiber intakes are "unachievable" and that the message should just be the more, the better--like maybe just have a bowl of cereal or something.

The real Dr. Kellogg was actually one of our most famous physicians, credited for being one of the first to sound the alarm about smoking, and who may have been the first American physician to have recognized the field of nutrition as a science. He would be rolling in his grave today if he knew what his family's company had become.

High dietary fiber intake may help prevent strokes. The belief that dietary fiber intake is protectively associated with certain diseases was postulated 40 years ago and then enormously fueled and kept alive by a great body of science since. Today it is generally believed that eating lots of fiber-rich foods helps prevent obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases such as stroke.

The best observational studies to date found that fiber appears to significantly protect against the risk of stroke. Different strokes for different folks, depending, evidently, on how much fiber they ate. Notably, increasing fiber just seven grams a day was associated with a 7% reduction in stroke risk. And seven grams is easy, that's like a serving of whole grain pasta with tomato sauce and an apple.

What's the mechanism? Maybe it's that fiber helps lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Or it could just be that those eating more fiber are just eating more vegetables, or fewer calories, or less meat and fat, or improving digestion, all of which may slim us down and lower our blood pressure and the amount of inflammation in our bodies. Does it really matter, though? As Dr. Burkitt commented on the biblical passage, "A man scatters seed on the land--the seed sprouts and opens--how, he does not know," the farmer doesn't wait to find out. Had the farmer postponed his sowing until he understood seed germination, he would not have lasted very long. So yes, let's keep trying to figure out why fiber is protective, but in the meanwhile, we should be increasing our intake of fiber, which is to say increasing our intake of whole plant foods.

It's never too early to start eating healthier. Strokes are one of many complications of arterial stiffness. Though our first stroke might not happen until our 50's, our arteries may have been stiffening for decades leading up to it. Hundreds of kids were followed for 24 years, from age 13 in through 36 and researchers found that lower intake of fiber during a young age was associated with stiffening of the arteries leading up to the brain. Even by age 13, they could see differences in arterial stiffness depending on diet. Fiber intake is important at any age.

Again, it doesn't take much. One extra apple a day or an extra quarter cup of broccoli might translate into meaningful differences in arterial stiffness in adulthood. If you really don't want a stroke, we should try to get 25 grams a day of soluble fiber (found concentrated in beans, oats, nuts, and berries) and 47 grams a day of insoluble fiber (concentrated in whole grains). One would have to eat an extraordinarily healthy diet to get that much, yet these cut-off values could be considered as the minimum recommended daily intake of soluble and insoluble fiber to prevent stroke. The researchers admit these are higher than those commonly and arbitrarily proposed as "adequate" levels by scientific societies, but should we care about what authorities think is practical? They should just share the best scienceand let us make up our own minds.

Someone funded by Kellogg's wrote in to complain that in practice, such fiber intakes are "unachievable" and that the message should just be the more, the better--like maybe just have a bowl of cereal or something.

The real Dr. Kellogg was actually one of our most famous physicians, credited for being one of the first to sound the alarm about smoking, and who may have been the first American physician to have recognized the field of nutrition as a science. He would be rolling in his grave today if he knew what his family's company had become.

Milk is touted to build strong bones, but a compilation of all the best studies found no association between milk consumption and hip fracture risk, so drinking milk as an adult might not help bones, but what about in adolescence? Harvard researchers decided to put it to the test.

Studies have shown that greater milk consumption during childhood and adolescence contributes to peak bone mass, and is therefore expected to help avoid osteoporosis and bone fractures in later life. But that's not what researchers have found (as you can see in my video Is Milk Good for Our Bones?). Milk consumption during teenage years was not associated with a lower risk of hip fracture, and if anything, milk consumption was associated with a borderline increase in fracture risk in men.

It appears that the extra boost in total body bone mineral density from getting extra calcium is lost within a few years; even if you keep the calcium supplementation up. This suggests a partial explanation for the long-standing enigma that hip fracture rates are highest in populations with the greatest milk consumption. This may be an explanation for why they're not lower, but why would they be higher?

This enigma irked a Swedish research team, puzzled because studies again and again had shown a tendency of a higher risk of fracture with a higher intake of milk. Well, there is a rare birth defect called galactosemia, where babies are born without the enzymes needed to detoxify the galactose found in milk, so they end up with elevated levels of galactose in their blood, which can causes bone loss even as kids. So maybe, the Swedish researchers figured, even in normal people that can detoxify the stuff, it might not be good for the bones to be drinking it every day.

And galactose doesn't just hurt the bones. Galactose is what scientists use to cause premature aging in lab animals--it can shorten their lifespan, cause oxidative stress, inflammation, and brain degeneration--just with the equivalent of like one to two glasses of milk's worth of galactose a day. We're not rats, though. But given the high amount of galactose in milk, recommendations to increase milk intake for prevention of fractures could be a conceivable contradiction. So, the researchers decided to put it to the test, looking at milk intake and mortality as well as fracture risk to test their theory.

A hundred thousand men and women were followed for up to 20 years. Researchers found that milk-drinking women had higher rates of death, more heart disease, and significantly more cancer for each glass of milk. Three glasses a day was associated with nearly twice the risk of premature death, and they had significantly more bone and hip fractures. More milk, more fractures.

Men in a separate study also had a higher rate of death with higher milk consumption, but at least they didn't have higher fracture rates. So, the researchers found a dose dependent higher rate of both mortality and fracture in women, and a higher rate of mortality in men with milk intake, but the opposite for other dairy products like soured milk and yogurt, which would go along with the galactose theory, since bacteria can ferment away some of the lactose. To prove it though, we need a randomized controlled trial to examine the effect of milk intake on mortality and fractures. As the accompanying editorial pointed out, we better find this out soon since milk consumption is on the rise around the world.

Milk is touted to build strong bones, but a compilation of all the best studies found no association between milk consumption and hip fracture risk, so drinking milk as an adult might not help bones, but what about in adolescence? Harvard researchers decided to put it to the test.

Studies have shown that greater milk consumption during childhood and adolescence contributes to peak bone mass, and is therefore expected to help avoid osteoporosis and bone fractures in later life. But that's not what researchers have found (as you can see in my video Is Milk Good for Our Bones?). Milk consumption during teenage years was not associated with a lower risk of hip fracture, and if anything, milk consumption was associated with a borderline increase in fracture risk in men.

It appears that the extra boost in total body bone mineral density from getting extra calcium is lost within a few years; even if you keep the calcium supplementation up. This suggests a partial explanation for the long-standing enigma that hip fracture rates are highest in populations with the greatest milk consumption. This may be an explanation for why they're not lower, but why would they be higher?

This enigma irked a Swedish research team, puzzled because studies again and again had shown a tendency of a higher risk of fracture with a higher intake of milk. Well, there is a rare birth defect called galactosemia, where babies are born without the enzymes needed to detoxify the galactose found in milk, so they end up with elevated levels of galactose in their blood, which can causes bone loss even as kids. So maybe, the Swedish researchers figured, even in normal people that can detoxify the stuff, it might not be good for the bones to be drinking it every day.

And galactose doesn't just hurt the bones. Galactose is what scientists use to cause premature aging in lab animals--it can shorten their lifespan, cause oxidative stress, inflammation, and brain degeneration--just with the equivalent of like one to two glasses of milk's worth of galactose a day. We're not rats, though. But given the high amount of galactose in milk, recommendations to increase milk intake for prevention of fractures could be a conceivable contradiction. So, the researchers decided to put it to the test, looking at milk intake and mortality as well as fracture risk to test their theory.

A hundred thousand men and women were followed for up to 20 years. Researchers found that milk-drinking women had higher rates of death, more heart disease, and significantly more cancer for each glass of milk. Three glasses a day was associated with nearly twice the risk of premature death, and they had significantly more bone and hip fractures. More milk, more fractures.

Men in a separate study also had a higher rate of death with higher milk consumption, but at least they didn't have higher fracture rates. So, the researchers found a dose dependent higher rate of both mortality and fracture in women, and a higher rate of mortality in men with milk intake, but the opposite for other dairy products like soured milk and yogurt, which would go along with the galactose theory, since bacteria can ferment away some of the lactose. To prove it though, we need a randomized controlled trial to examine the effect of milk intake on mortality and fractures. As the accompanying editorial pointed out, we better find this out soon since milk consumption is on the rise around the world.

Foods of animal origin in general naturally contain hormones, but cow's milk may be of particular concern. The hormones naturally found even in organic cow's milk may have played a role in studies that found a relationship between dairy products and human illnesses, such as acne, certain cancers and male reproductive disorders. Milk consumption has also been associated with an increased risk of early puberty and endometrial cancer in postmenopausal women, but "hormonal levels in food could be particularly dangerous in the case of vulnerable populations, such as young children or pregnant women. To this critical population, even a small hormonal intake could lead to major changes in the metabolism."

If you check out my video Why Do Vegan Women Have 5x Fewer Twins, you can see that children are highly sensitive to sex steroids. Because their levels of sex steroids are very low, even a small variation would account for a major change in the total activity of the involved hormone. Because no lower threshold for estrogenic action has been established, caution should be taken to avoid unnecessary exposure of fetuses and children to exogenous sex steroids, even at very low levels.

In the AMA's Pediatrics Journal, the Chair of Boston Children's Hospital's Obesity Prevention Center along with the chair of Harvard's nutrition department questioned dairy industry recommendations that children should drink three glasses of milk a day. Dairy milk evolved to promote the growth of grazing animals at high risk for predation when small, so they needed to put on a few hundred pounds quickly in the first few months of life.

The consequences of lifetime human exposure to the growth factors in milk have not been well studied. "Milk consumption increases serum concentrations of insulin-like growth factor 1, which is linked to prostate and other cancers. In addition, modern industrial methods maintain dairy cows in active milk production throughout their pregnancies, resulting in a milk supply with high levels of reproductive hormones."

Pregnant cows excrete significantly higher levels of sex steroids into their milk than non-pregnant cows. The subsequent consumption of such dairy products from pregnancy results in additional consumer exposure. And it's not just dairy. Although dairy products are an important source of hormones, other products of animal origin must be considered as well. All edible tissues of animal origin contain estrogen. This may explain why, in a study of over a thousand women eating plant-based diets, vegan women have a twinning rate that is one fifth that of vegetarians and omnivores.

Twin pregnancies are risky pregnancies, with much higher complication rates. Many parents and physicians underestimate the negative consequences of multiple pregnancy, but "women with a multiple pregnancy face greater risks for themselves and their infants." Twin babies may be ten times more likely to die at birth. To avoid these complications, the research team writes, "women attempting conception should avoid milk and dairy products."